Today I went to the local climbing gym with Alex oniugnip, Will, and Will's friend Andrew. I had never tried it before and was kind of nervous, but it was a lot of fun! In the toproping room, which apparently has 33-foot walls, I managed to get all the way to the top of a route marked 5.5 and most of the way up another, slightly harder route, both with the help of Alex belaying and Will yelling encouragement and advice from the ground. I also learned how to belay for Alex, who, as usual, was an animal, climbing 5.9s and 5.10s, including some with steep overhangs.

I had been worried for some reason that climbing would be too difficult for my weak ab muscles, but actually, my abs aren't sore at all; all the soreness is in my forearms, and even that isn't so bad. I think I could have challenged myself more. I'm eager to go back. Also, wearing the toproping harness made me feel vaguely badass -- which is funny, considering that it's more or less the equivalent of a seatbelt. Perhaps seatbelts could be redesigned in such a way as to make the wearer feel awesome.

I ducked into the bouldering room for a little while (since I heard that Chris chrisamaphone likes bouldering) and tried to climb something marked V1, but really couldn't get very far. Later, Andrew mentioned that a V1 bouldering problem is the equivalent of a 5.9 or so in toproping, so I didn't feel so bad.

Yeah, that makes sense. I had previously thought that there was no such thing as climbing without your core, but now that I think about it, my core muscles don't get much of a workout when I climb a ladder, and climbing on vertical walls is like climbing a very irregular ladder. I suppose that the greater the overhang, the more you need to use your core to stay on the wall.

Rock climbing will give you AWESOME shoulders if you keep at it. I lived with a woman for a while who tangoed, rode her bike, and rock climbed -- she was a rock-solid mass of hotness. Even better, despite being only 5'3" or something like that, she was SUPER strong.

I once went bouldering with the lady linettasky describes, and I can attest that watching her climb was a seriously sexy experience. It was like watching vertical tango dancing, if that makes any sense.